Ep.335: Steve Moore, Voteface

Ep.335: Steve Moore, Voteface

Steve Moore joins us from CannaTech in London and takes through his public affairs experience. He’s done work for both David Cameron and Tony Blair. Originally from Northern Ireland, he notes it was an interesting time to be in that region in the 1970’s & 80’s. As a kid he didn’t really understand what was happening. As a teenager he says he adapted accordingly. People were able to weave normal life around what was happening. Regarding cannabis legalization- Steve has noticed a few things- cannabis normalization changes from place to place. Stereotypes are nebulous. And the political environment is always unique regarding cannabis. Steve takes us through the unique situation of the cannabis economy in England.

Transcript:

Speaker 2: Steve Moore joins us from Canada and London. That takes us through his public affairs experience. He's done work for both David Cameron and Tony Blair originally for Northern Ireland. He notes it was an interesting time to be in that region in the 19 seventies and eighties as a kid. He didn't really understand what was happening as a teenager. He says he adapted accordingly. People were able to eat normal life around what was happening regarding cannabis legalization. Steve has noticed a few things. Cannabis normalization changes from place to place. Stereotypes are nebulous and the political environment is always unique. Regarding cannabis. Steve takes us through the unique situation of the cannabis economy in England. Welcome to cannabis economy. I'm your host Seth Adler. Check us out on social with the handle can economy. That's two ends of the word economy. Steve Moore, depends where you come from, your face. We're very relaxed.

Speaker 2: You volt fast. Can I call it k five? Really? I saw it and I'm like bolted. Foshay. Yeah. You're a republic policy kind of guy. Let's understand a little bit of your background. You said that you worked with Tony. Tony, Tony Blair, I think you said I've worked with. No, we need this. Yeah. Yeah. You've got this here. Here we go. Um, I've worked with politicians for 30 years on all range of issues, so, um, I, I've worked with both Conservative Party on the Labor Party, I various things, various guises. Yeah. Because he said Cameron, so I was saying Tony Blair just to get under the. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What you've done both sides see some support for time for Blair as well. So. Okay, there you go. Yes. So both sides of the fence. So really you are a policy guy. Truly. Well, I'm not really a policy guy. I'm more a campaign guy, public affairs, so

Speaker 3: I can get the message out, I can understand what the issues are, I can tell the public about it. Maybe even make them think what I want them to think. That's probably the last part of the trick. Yeah, that's part of the magic. That's part of the magic if you go right, let's make sure we understand how you know how to do that. Where are you from? It sounds like close to here. Yeah. So, so I'm originally from Northern Ireland in Belfast on, but I've lived here. I've lived in theU , s other than Australia. Uh, I've been back here for 25 years. Our offices are five miles from here and the west end of London. Uh, and we launched in February last year. Okay. Let's take these one by one Northern Ireland back in the seventies. Yeah. Northern Ireland in the safety. You just set this up for us.

Speaker 3: What was it like as a kid then? What was it was, um, it was the most interesting time to grow up. They're the most of a and a right in the middle of the troubles. I was born just the boat later enough to avoid all the real trump troubles. I was a teenager growing up in the, uh, independent worst part of the trouble is probably wasn't intimately involved. So as a bystander, understood as a teenager than what, what was it? Because I remember simply reading the papers. Yeah, I remember reading historical kind of feedback because you might have a year or two on me. Yeah. Yeah. But as a teenager when this was going on, what does that do to a teenagers mind? Well, it's a very politicized environment, but also it's a teenager has nothing to compare it to their life experience. Were there things that you adopted according accordingly, uh, and uh, what's extraordinary but northern autumn and you give them this, give them the size of the place and the stent of a murders.

Speaker 3: Terrorism is the sort of normal life that most people could lead. People with their normal lives around that. Mothers in chaos, but on the flection now I can look back and say it was modeled the renewal bars open in the evenings or new cinemas or an a restaurants. Right? But you have to get searched. The city center body search, going city center, those kinds of things are clearly mad. Did. Did you going through that experience, did that inform you or kind of life's work in policy or is this just a happy occurrence? It's a hub in some ways. You're saying happy occurrence, I'll tell Ya. Yeah, I think it's, it's your life, your experiences as a growing up our bond in some way, whether you recognize they're not to have shipped some of the bottom tier and the rest of your life. I think I was probably politicized earlier than most people.

Speaker 2: Steve Moore joins us from Canada and London. That takes us through his public affairs experience. He's done work for both David Cameron and Tony Blair originally for Northern Ireland. He notes it was an interesting time to be in that region in the 19 seventies and eighties as a kid. He didn't really understand what was happening as a teenager. He says he adapted accordingly. People were able to eat normal life around what was happening regarding cannabis legalization. Steve has noticed a few things. Cannabis normalization changes from place to place. Stereotypes are nebulous and the political environment is always unique. Regarding cannabis. Steve takes us through the unique situation of the cannabis economy in England. Welcome to cannabis economy. I'm your host Seth Adler. Check us out on social with the handle can economy. That's two ends of the word economy. Steve Moore, depends where you come from, your face. We're very relaxed.

Speaker 2: You volt fast. Can I call it k five? Really? I saw it and I'm like bolted. Foshay. Yeah. You're a republic policy kind of guy. Let's understand a little bit of your background. You said that you worked with Tony. Tony, Tony Blair, I think you said I've worked with. No, we need this. Yeah. Yeah. You've got this here. Here we go. Um, I've worked with politicians for 30 years on all range of issues, so, um, I, I've worked with both Conservative Party on the Labor Party, I various things, various guises. Yeah. Because he said Cameron, so I was saying Tony Blair just to get under the. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What you've done both sides see some support for time for Blair as well. So. Okay, there you go. Yes. So both sides of the fence. So really you are a policy guy. Truly. Well, I'm not really a policy guy. I'm more a campaign guy, public affairs, so

Speaker 3: I can get the message out, I can understand what the issues are, I can tell the public about it. Maybe even make them think what I want them to think. That's probably the last part of the trick. Yeah, that's part of the magic. That's part of the magic if you go right, let's make sure we understand how you know how to do that. Where are you from? It sounds like close to here. Yeah. So, so I'm originally from Northern Ireland in Belfast on, but I've lived here. I've lived in theU , s other than Australia. Uh, I've been back here for 25 years. Our offices are five miles from here and the west end of London. Uh, and we launched in February last year. Okay. Let's take these one by one Northern Ireland back in the seventies. Yeah. Northern Ireland in the safety. You just set this up for us.

Speaker 3: What was it like as a kid then? What was it was, um, it was the most interesting time to grow up. They're the most of a and a right in the middle of the troubles. I was born just the boat later enough to avoid all the real trump troubles. I was a teenager growing up in the, uh, independent worst part of the trouble is probably wasn't intimately involved. So as a bystander, understood as a teenager than what, what was it? Because I remember simply reading the papers. Yeah, I remember reading historical kind of feedback because you might have a year or two on me. Yeah. Yeah. But as a teenager when this was going on, what does that do to a teenagers mind? Well, it's a very politicized environment, but also it's a teenager has nothing to compare it to their life experience. Were there things that you adopted according accordingly, uh, and uh, what's extraordinary but northern autumn and you give them this, give them the size of the place and the stent of a murders.

Speaker 3: Terrorism is the sort of normal life that most people could lead. People with their normal lives around that. Mothers in chaos, but on the flection now I can look back and say it was modeled the renewal bars open in the evenings or new cinemas or an a restaurants. Right? But you have to get searched. The city center body search, going city center, those kinds of things are clearly mad. Did. Did you going through that experience, did that inform you or kind of life's work in policy or is this just a happy occurrence? It's a hub in some ways. You're saying happy occurrence, I'll tell Ya. Yeah, I think it's, it's your life, your experiences as a growing up our bond in some way, whether you recognize they're not to have shipped some of the bottom tier and the rest of your life. I think I was probably politicized earlier than most people.

Speaker 3: I've probably, uh, and I probably grew up in matured more quickly other people, but I was always riding. I was riding from a nine, 10 years old. So I'm writing. Yeah. What were you writing? Uh, writing stories, writing funds it, writing for fanzines I would have played when I was 18, 19, right. Quite a few plays when I was 18, 19. So I spent most of my university years riding, play interest with a political theme, Safar, that kind of thing is. I gotcha. Okay. And so, uh, in the loop would be a movie that you appreciate the. Right. Okay. When did you actually gain employment in this space? So in the space that I'm in, well I started the, with this hot, our regular friendship with a philanthropist who is very passionate about this issue. And in 20, towards the end of Twenty 15, he asked me to take a serious look at this.

Speaker 3: I went to America, I went to Canada, looked and try to understand more about what we're, how this reform movement shaping up and came the view about high, what could learn from those movements, but also what we would have to be different in the UK. One of the things that struck me was that pretty unrealistic that cannabis legalization that was happening in very different ways in different places. How so, of course we know, but what did you notice? I wonder. Well, what I do, I suppose that there are three things really. One is that the normalization of cannabis use varies from territory to territory. Yeah. So in a western parks United States, western Canada, the use of cannabis is fairly, well not normalized. It's fairly culturally kind of integrated in the blood. Yeah, it's in the blood. Yeah. So I'm very and uh, in a way that isn't in New York or it isn't here in the UK.

Speaker 3: Yeah. So, so that's the first thing. So I think. So the fitness center, the normalization of use, the stereotypes associated with it, you know, if you go to Canada, people talk to you about your average cannabis users are middleclass lawyer coming back smoking a joint at the end of the day. That's not a stereotype anyone recognized in the UK. Right? Yeah. So those are things. And then I think the political environment as well. And that's key to understand the political environment and every situation is different. So you've got in the US, you have a very strong libertarian tradition which is statistically insignificant here in the UK. Statistically insignificant. Yeah. Yeah. And so, uh, it's interesting to hear as an American here, you say that we have a strong libertarian streak. Yeah. Because it doesn't feel that way, you know, where, where, where I am. So, uh, just politically, just to let you know, I come from the left, I tried to be in the middle.

Speaker 3: Yeah. I find myself with no one in the middle. Yeah, I see left. I see. Right. I do see a few libertarians, but I don't see that as the main idea. I must say as a manager, but I think there is a kind of free spirit, the fuck that you, that you can come in and some things that God is incomprehensible to European. Got It on. I think on the arguments that have prevailed so far in the reforming theater arguments that wouldn't pass muster here. I see. Yeah. And so if you're looking at the UK first. Yep. What are you looking at? Well, what you're not looking at is what you come to. The first mistake most people have made is to borrow from the lexicon of the US, US crude, the lower and drugs, and also create the resistance of the war on drugs.

Speaker 3: Right? So talking about orphan drugs in a country with unarmed police on a national health service is, is absurd. Rights from of prohibition is something that most people in the UK wouldn't really recognize. So I think you've got to start. You've got to look at the language of how you frame it. Yeah. So what about regulating cannabis like alcohol? That stems from a prohibition, but is there still a disconnect? Yeah, those are disconnect. I think the. Yeah. So I think the only David Cameron's view was always the biggest drug problem in Britain is alcohol. I think it's called probably right. You know, our biggest problem, abuse of any drug, legal or illegal regularly is alcohol. Alcohol is the biggest problem, uh, and uh, but I think the, there's a rational argument to say that the successful, if you like to call it successful regulation of alcohol and tobacco to lesser extent in UK, provides a rational basis for saying that Kevin distribute, legalized, but policy is not beer based on rational arguments.

Speaker 3: And that's a mistake. A lot of people who are outside looking in ms dot, they tend to believe that rational arguments will reveal and somebody Russia was don't prevail, right? Emotional argos prevailed. Emotional arguments prevailed, rational arguments don't. Yep. Which is why you've put together this big pamphlet here called cannabis in the UK. And what I told you is that this is better than anarchy in the UK even though that's a pretty decent song. It'll lock on its own. Uh, what's in there, what you just told them here, folks. Folks, perspectives to 17. This is not right. This is not published yet, but will be published shortly. Um, so this is really the product of 18 months work and it's, it's a very deliberate process to a help from a debate around cannabis, a new debate around cannabis, uh, in the UK, one that, um, is based on existing trends in law enforcement, uh, the nature of the evolution of the illegal market, political attitudes and things like that.

Speaker 3: So it's based on lots of focus groups, lots of pooling, lots of framing, lots of message testing and so on. And it's a very. What it is, is at its heart, it's a very British argument for considering this issue, but it's obviously got the capacity to be used at any other territory in the world. I think it's the most comprehensive framework for public consultation around cannabis that you guys used to. Anyone's ever created it. You got a three pronged approach. We kind of talked about it. Yeah, yeah. I came on here. Yeah, yeah. Global policy, policing, potency. Those are the big three things. So I think if we were having this conversation five years ago, it would've been impossible to point to anywhere in the world, whether it's integration on legalizing cannabis, the idea of legalizing more regulated markets for cannabis belonged in pamphlets and uh, it didn't belong reality.

Speaker 3: So what we have nih in various us theater, particularly in Canada, which is directly relevant to what's happening in the UK as a Commonwealth country, largely social democratic countries, very relevant is you have no, I got this is leaping beyond theory and the practice. So that's very helpful because the UK is never going to be a leader in this field. So that's. Why do you say that? I mean, you say it's a British approach, you, but everybody else can use it. If I would, let's just make sure to square that circle if you want to hear what I'm saying. Is that you with Canada legalizing and the way it is without the US states to a lesser extent, usts legalizing the quality of a politician in the UK could easily say, why is the other company done this? If this is such a compelling, we're such a compelling rationale for doing this, why haven't liberal Scandinavian companies done it?

Speaker 3: Right. These are the response I got and yeah, so I think Britain is helpful for me to go into parliament and say, you can meet the chief of police in Canada, Toronto. We've been leading the process for t for a Prime Minister Trudeau. That's helpful because I can map them to the person who is the chief of police in London or that answer. Yeah. Right. So I think so that does help. I think that's the first thing. Last thing, the second thing is that in the UK in particular, law enforcement is changing. Well before we get to law enforcement, I just want to tackle this kind of global policy thing because Canada does have legal federally regulated medicinal cannabis, which as an American is still fascinating. Yup. No, they, they, they're not stopping. They're, they're going to be legal with adult use next year. Yep. Israel completely federal medical, right.

Speaker 3: Uruguay federal. They've got their issues, but it's happening. Germany on its way. Yeah. Yeah. What are you seeing as through points globally as far as legal cannabis? I think, but I think in terms of legal counsel, I think, I think the movement's on medical companies in Europe are very important. I think no one would associate Germany. We're doing irresponsible policy making. Yeah, fair enough. That's helpful. Yeah. So I started one time. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, but I think it would increase the modern. The modern Germany is not associated with reckless public policy. Okay. So that's very helpful. Uh, and it's, they have a government that's led by someone on the center. Right. That's helpful as well. Something. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's what makes, I think the medical market in Canada, the medical access in most states would not be passed muster in the UK.

Speaker 3: I think if you brought policymakers in the UK to American states where there's legal cannabis medical opened the glasses, the medical cannabis, I think it would be hugely counterproductive. Yeah, I do not. I do not think they've extended the licensing of medical talent operating in the public interest. And that is, and you've, you've pointed it out, it's a mindset thing. The mindset in the UK does not equal the mindset and California, I don't know, that's just not happened. No. What about Israel? But um, I don't know enough about Israel. I don't know if it's not alignment and if you'll forgive me, I don't have a conference such as this. I would say there's really experienced is not terribly relevant. Why? Why not? So we understand why a coast Canada, I think Canada is the one that works. If you're asking me where would I take parliamentarians about take parliamentarians next year, I take them to Canada.

Speaker 3: Why? Because I think the approach that candidate, the, the inclusive approach that calendar has adopted engaging public health at the most senior level, engaging enforcement, the most senior level and getting mental health professionals, education professionals and good and having a pin sticking to an off year process to take that forward feels like a sort of proof only sort of process that would work in the UK. The fact that it's implementing a manifesto pledge is something that people will recognize. The UK, the fact that it's, you know, it's been done in a very kind of deliberative way. It's something that would work. I think the freedoms that Trudeau was used about street protection and child protection are powerful, compelling, emotional arguments that could work anywhere. Yeah. Yeah. And that brings us to policing another kind of tent pole for you. Yeah. Yeah. So the policing issue is in the policing has changed dramatically.

Speaker 3: Law enforcement students dramatically, particularly in the last seven years in the UK for two reasons. One is austerity. We have a 20 percent less police officers in the UK than the hard in 2010. And alongside that we've also a devolve responsibility for policing priorities to directly elected police officials, commissioners, each of the districts across the UK. So the decision made the decisions that can be taken nih regarding something like the, the legalized it, the prosecutor of people possessing cannabis is a decision that the moment actually rest with a directly elected police commissioner in one of 40 odd countries around the country. Right? Yeah. Well that makes it feel like the United States of America. So we're kind of, you know, Spirit somehow. Yeah, I'm not. The consequence of that is that we hire nicea very dramatic plummeting in the number of prosecutions for possession of, for growing. Right. Uh, this is a good thing.

Speaker 3: Which is a helpful way or. Well, it's good to understand why we're, it's usual freedom. Okay. That's useful for them because of it, because I think that it's useful to expose government hypocrisy. That's very helpful. Know governments don't like to be embarrassed. Be able to say that will make this illegal substance that we're prosecuting people who grow it in salad and possess it when they're not is helpful because it got, you know, niggling away at the kind of the difference between the rhetoric and the reality is always a helpful company and kind of strategy. There we go. Okay. So global policy, guarded policing, garden potency, and this is the defining issue in the UK. The defining issue in the UK is around the experience of people that people have got big set concern about the impact of cannabis shoes on mental health. Okay. Yeah. No one has really gone there before.

Speaker 3: We have very deliberately gone there in the last few months. Paul North produced the report for us last week on the issue. Um, they, people who've come before us have Kennedy avoid the mental health issue. The Liberal Democratic Party published a manifesto pledge to legalize cannabis without really consulting at all with the mental health community. You can't do that in the UK. You will make no progress at all unless you go with your opponent's arguments are strongest. It's a very basic campaign. Dictum a the moment compel it. They haven't got. They have a compelling argument to say that cannabis misuse. There's linkedin health. Yeah, but him on young people. And of course it's subject to conjecture, but I think if we run the numbers, so we run the numbers over the last 10 years and the number of people who are presenting themselves with mental health conditions linked to cannabis use has doubled in the last 10 years, doubled at the same time as police prosecutions of halfed.

Speaker 3: That's interesting. From a component perspective, you can build and Freeman new argument, but not to the data. How would you, what, what are the words you're using? So what I'm saying, data and never dated will not win the argument, but what you can do is construct the narrative from the data, the data, the narrative will weaken the construct from this data is that the government is saying they're protecting your kids from cannabis and what we're able to send responses, actually you're not because the kids in Britain of near ubiquitous access to high potency cannabis, which may, if they did a poll about use of this product could increase the chances development psychosis, what hammer 30 by four to six times. So that's been interesting and a country that prides itself on public health care, free public healthcare as useful argument. Yeah, absolutely. And so, uh, we've been engaging with children's charities, with mental health computers on this issue.

Speaker 3: This government, our government and most governments do is priding itself and making mental health a priority. No government that takes it. That view can be ambivalent about the impact of high potency cannabis. They simply cannot. That's your. They don't like to be embarrassed, as you said. They don't have to be embarrassed and they don't like scratching up the data. And they took in the UK, the combination of these have 40 years of possibles. I mean just to say just as something that historical context is quite important on the southern coast context. So Britain's really first major drug crisis with the 19 eighties. Okay. The reason you're in London here and you're here today on the edge of this extraordinary city is, but it's the result of policy decisions that were taken by Margaret Thatcher in 19 year these big buying a decision to basically make this city explode and turn his company, the city and the financial center for the world.

Speaker 3: Yeah. And that's why you're here. But a byproduct was that was also the deindustrialization of cities across the country. I'm not created a new arise in heroin use comes aids arrived on the scene. So at that stage we had our first public funded, our first sense recognizable drug crisis in the UK. And what we don't want to recruit needle exchange programs. We could have a publicly funded trick treatment services for the first time. And around that time, I think it's fair to say that the British policy establishment decided tacitly not explicitly that cannabis was a rather benign product and liquid logic that could largely be ignored and public policy terms. So consequently, and that's never asked what largely prevailed to this day. So what you don't have in Britain, there's lots of mass campaigns, morning people, the rights and potency, what you don't have is very readily accessible treatment services for people who misuse cannabis or any recognition of that. What you don't want, you don't have as revealed in the summer when the government published along with the UK drug strategy. Is that any breakfast to the potency issue at all? So what we've been doing last year, because it's embarrassing the public health authorities by saying you pick years to publish this UK drug strategy, you mean almost no reference to cannabis at all. And yet we've able to control your data to discover that precede. The potency is rising all the time.

Speaker 2: So I'm coming at them from the right with that issue.

Speaker 3: Yes we are. Yeah. Well that's what you must do. You know, we have a right wing government, we've got the most right wing, prime minister, socially conservative prime minister, we've had for generation Hasa.

Speaker 2: I feel like you know what you're doing. Well, that's fine. We'll find it. We'll find out soon enough. So let's just make sure that we understand the rest of boldface. I mean, we've got this perspective but, but tell us more about the organization so we know what you're doing. So again, I do want to refer to it as voltaire. Yeah. You know, not be when we come to Israel. Yeah, of course. So, uh, so we're very deliberately look at all

Speaker 3: stroke reform issues. We very deliberately look at exploring and examining alternative to current public policies, willing to old trucks. So that takes us into all sorts of different demands. So, uh, so our workers, our, our works includes looking at the impact of drugs in prisons are impacts on rehabilitation, um, policy. We've uh, uh, which is catastrophic. We, we're looking at, uh, the course of experience. We'll be looking at publishing of our next report that's going to be looking at making a new case for drug consumption rooms. We've got record number of drug deaths in this country at the moment. We want to respond to that.

Speaker 2: Can I just jump in on jerk consumption because we've just passed in Denver consumption, which now cannot become anything. It's being held up as I'm sure you've been in those rooms, so how are you kind of looking at that issue? How are you going to make that happen?

Speaker 3: Well, what we want to do in the. It's been very joke desk, been rising year and year in the UK. It's been very, very difficult to elicit much public sympathy for that issue. Much advisements because I'm going to get that achieved and that's a commonplace problem in lots of countries as well. Eliciting a public concern for drug addicts is. It's tricky. It's very, very tricky, so I think what we, but I think that there have been around the country led by the police. Interestingly, some really new experiments. This spears in Dublin and in Glasgow and places like that. The police are seeing a very strong link between the crime acquisitive crime linked to heroin use and the kind of wellbeing of liberal communities, so there's been the case that's being made in Dublin. The kisses me by the business community, the business community funded the research and reports.

Speaker 3: The policy around that in Scotland and the north of England has been driven by police commissioners who can see a net gain in terms of crime and justice by doing this policy now what we can do is we can bring our professional experience and comparing to help those people in those kind of her conducting those sort of experiments to help them get national coverage, the media, and to engage with politicians and it's from the conservative side. Well we have a conservative government, so making conservative arguments isn't a bad idea, isn't about. It's not. It's not a bad idea to make the idea as we keep saying, if we have a Labor government, we could make. We make ideas that appeals that math, but I think we're in the business of making impact and I we're not. We might as well just roll out next year, so the next few years and we're not going to get

Speaker 2: understood in terms. Yeah. So, and to that point, uh, I've been talking to as many people as we will talk to me about politics and policy and those are two different things, but one is held up by the other. Yeah. I read everything that I can from all the way left to all the way. Right. Simply so that I can understand what other folks are thinking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You've been in public policy for quite some time. Where do you think we are as far as conversation and how can we break out of this? Meaning I can't see the left talking to the right or the right talking to the left and any country. Right. How do we break out of that?

Speaker 3: Well, I think in, in general, I mean, well let's it in general. I mean, in general there's a problem and the problems basically been the rise of globalization or underworld, which is billions of people and the rise of capitalism run the board was billions of people out of poverty but has left. The crisis of capitalism is a crisis of the West. Yup. Not the customer. Do the claps. The. There wasn't a global recession after 2000 and yet there was a recession in the west. Problem with the West, not the globalist. Yeah, so what we've been, what politicians and policy makers in the West, whether in Europe and in the UK and in the US have struggled with, is adapting to the changing nature of capitalism across the world. Yeah. Dede Allen dealing. I'm dealing with the fallout of the industrialization, so they are all profound challenges that all companies face regarding the issue of the issue of cannabis legalization.

Speaker 3: Our experience in the UK is it's not a left wing or right wing issue. Every time we have a debate on, we have a debate where 10 or a dozen people turn up in the House of Commons or hubs to be it probably once a year. Over the last 30 years. There's an even number of conservatives and labor politicians will turn up, but this is. You can't be framed around traditional left and right, right. I think it has to be framed in a new way that can engage both compassionate conservatives and also liberal people on the left and yeah. Your use of the word liberal is different here. If I am correct, so liberal. How do you mean? Just for the global audience that's listening? Well, I think in the case of the liberal, I think we. I'm thinking about people who are generally will show in Britain that was the approximate being a social liberal, but support gay marriage would be an a in favor of abortion or be alive to reform a drugs, for example, upbeat. Someone who'd been the liberal side and the liberals member in this country. Liberals existed in both political parties on both political traditions, in Bristol, liberalism to some extent. So there we go. Yeah. So identifying what those folks. What do you do? Uh, with my, uh, with my, uh, in

Speaker 2: the US who are coming from the right and saying that, uh, you know, liberals are fucking morons. What do you do? How do you talk to them? I'm not kidding. You.

Speaker 3: Get rid of trump. Trump. Trump. Fair enough. I thought you drawn traditional. You draw on the traditional values of the party of Lincoln debate. Trump.

Speaker 2: There you have it. Okay, fantastic. Thank you for those answers. I have three final questions for you. I'll tell you what, they are Alaska them in order. I did this before and folks might go by now. What's most surprised you in cannabis? What's most surprised you in life and on the soundtrack of your life? One track, one song. That's got to be on the first things first. Now that you really have studied cannabis, what has most surprised you?

Speaker 3: What surprised me was hot. Well, highly efficient. Others there are in the counter space. Oh sure. It's incredible that I organize a study trip to Barcelona, um, in 2015 for a small group of grassroots computers, I think it was 15, 15 and the Barcelona and I realized two days of classes for them to understand how the club system looked at, whether the kind of a cannabis club system worked out and we had people giving talks on bookkeeping for cannabis clubs, people, illegal cannabis clubs, the marketing concepts, and I just thought it's amazing. High for two days they sat and took notes and absorb everything about that. They enjoyed the club's afterwards as well. So efficient. I was. I think that's very important. Aficionados and also the passion, right? To go along with the intellect. Passions. Incredible. Yeah. Passionate. The Passion is incredibly high. Many people who do our thing, and I'm not sure this is all the other helpful, there are many people whose lives are defined by the use of cannabis. That shocked me, that people who literally have facebook pages just with a whole stream of references to cannabis. That's something that's quite something indeed. What's most surprised you in life? I have. I'm still here.

Speaker 2: Okay, that's fair answer to parents are considering where you've come from. By that I mean, uh, and also of course Northern Ireland on the soundtrack of your life. One track, one song that's. Got It.

Speaker 2: Oh Wow. See, I was not expecting that. Here's to a Michael stipend. The boys. Thank you so much Steve Moore from face or my preferred voltage. And there you have Steve Moore, very much appreciate his approach. Meaning, here's what the reality is, here's what the political situation is in England. So we have to come at this issue from this perspective so that we can actually get something done. So, uh, I hope Washington DC is listening. Stay tuned.

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